


Favoured

by Bazylia_de_Grean



Series: Never Far from the Queen [5]
Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-29 00:15:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15060887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bazylia_de_Grean/pseuds/Bazylia_de_Grean
Summary: Hylea likes the soft notes of music, Magran favours abrupt fire, Abydon values precise tools. Woedica has always preferred more sophisticated devices.





	Favoured

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Star_Miya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Miya/gifts).



> (A prompt from the drabble writing promp set; suggested by Miya: #45. under the influence)

His breaths are calm, regular – but just a bit too shallow, always constricted, even in sleep – she could measure time by them. She does; his inhales and exhales are a clock, counting the days until she reclaims her throne and gets her revenge.

Woedica watches him, trails a fingertip up his arm, shoulder, leans in to hear his soft sigh as her palm glides over his hair, as her fingers briefly dip into the dark strands. He thinks of her, he dreams of her; he is hers, in sleep and in waking.

She brushes her lips across his collarbone, briefly tasting the salt on his skin. One of the many offerings he gives her, and still they are one and the same – he has nothing to lay at her altar but himself. The only – ultimate – sacrifice. She accepts, she takes – some would call it greed, but she is the queen among queens, and merely collects her due.

Amusing, how there is no one in the mortal world powerful enough to stand against him, how he directs all the kith according to her orders and how they follow – but with her, he is nothing but a servant. Under her touch he is helpless, defenceless, a slave not only to simple desire – that, he is able to command – but to that most foolish feeling mortals call love, praising it above all emotions because they cannot see how it binds them, too blind to realize no shackles are more secure than those put on willingly.

Her fingers move over his face, following the outlines of his features – eyes, too perceptive for his own good; mouth, so talented with words – and deeds; temples, hiding that exquisite mind so proficient at lying to itself. She has seen many ciphers – even before they were called so, before they had any names at all – but he brought those skills to a new level, bending and breaking and rearranging not only the minds of others, but his own thoughts as well. Something no other god could appreciate like she does.

Hylea likes the soft notes of music, Magran favours abrupt fire, Abydon values precise tools. But she has always preferred more sophisticated devices. Complex trinkets, cogwheels and buttons and levers, an adra core wrapped in a labyrinth of copper wires and layers of rotating stone rings. Beautiful, complicated things that take years to master unless one knows how they work.

And Woedica knows. She always knows. She understands first, before she chooses, and then she keeps her precious tools – toys – for ages, until she becomes so proficient in using them it surpasses magic.

She is not as callous as others see her; she does not discard her little treasures; does not throw them away, forgotten. Ah, no; she cares for them, as any craftsman should, polishes them with careful, fond touches like a jeweller until they take on the required shape and shine. Keeps them close like artisans do with their favourite tools of the trade, lovingly using them over and over, and over, until they wear themselves out.

He surpasses them all, the most intricate clockwork she has ever laid eyes and hands on. That is why his place is at her side, always under her watchful gaze, forever in her plans, just as she is ever present in his thoughts, echoing in his heartbeat, woven into the very fabric of his soul. Devoted, faithful, steadfast; almost perfect. And one day, after everything is done, she will reward him for it; ah, yes, she will. When he turns to dust, it will be at her feet.


End file.
